The Biggest Liberal Whoppers Of The Obama Era: #2

After the stimulus, liberals realized that they couldn't propose a health care bill that would be seen as too expensive. So, they came up with a way to make it appear as though the plan to put millions on the government health care roles and set up a massive new bureaucracy to implement the program wouldn't cost a dime!

They did this in a few ways. First, they included theoretical cuts in the bill that were never going to happen. For example, the bill has big cuts to doctor reimbursement rates under Medicare.

Then, they counted $500 billion two times. Once, to pay for the new Obamacare entitlement and then again to extend the solvency of Medicare.

When they sent the bill to the Congressional Budget Office with these numbers, the CBO had no choice but to tabulate the bogus math that they were given by the Democrats and as a result, the bill was shown to actually CUT the deficit by about $150 Billion over ten years.

When pressed on the matter, the CBO's Director had to admit that the administrations math didn't add up:

"CBO has been asked whether the reductions in projected [Medicare] Part A outlays and increases in projected HI revenues under the legislation can provide additional resources to pay future Medicare benefits while simultaneously providing resources to pay for new programs outside of Medicare. Our answer is basically no....To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government's ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savingsand thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position." - Doug Elmendorf

Even Obama's own secretary of Health and Human services admitted to the double-counting gimmick.